by Raven Snow
Rowen sighed. She saw no way around telling them the truth. “I was stuck in the room for a while there, remember?” Benji and Willow both nodded. Rose and Eric just took her word on it. Rowen continued. “Well, it was Darren coming back to his office. Julia Martinez was with him, and… well…” Rowen trailed off. She had to assume they all got the idea.
Eric looked unsurprised. Willow was smiling at the scandalous news. Rose did not look unhappy. She disliked both Darren and Julia quite a bit right now. She was probably looking forward to writing a scathing article about this when next she got the chance.
“No way.” Benji shook his head. “Julia? No. She wouldn’t do something like that. You must have heard someone else.”
“I don’t think so,” said Rowen, thinking back to hiding behind the desk. What she had heard was pretty blatant. “You even saw her, didn’t you? She heard you two making out in your office.”
Benji’s face turned red. “We weren’t making out. She kissed me trying to make a distraction. I just wanted to get out of there.”
“Well, either way, it was her.” Rowen spread her hands, not sure how else to convince him. “I seriously doubt she’s responsible for Jerry’s murder, but I’d bet you anything she’s the one Darren is having an affair with, so…” She trailed off again.
Benji didn’t have a good response to that. He huffed and glared at the laptop she was holding, leaving it at that for now.
“So what does this mean for us?” asked Willow.
“It means we tell the police, like we planned.” Rowen backed out of the e-mail and began scrolling through again. “It looks like it was sent from an e-mail address one number off from the one he used to contact me. Looks like Jerry was playing it smart and dumb at the same time. The police probably haven’t found this particular e-mail yet.”
Rose was already pulling out her cellphone, no doubt to call her boyfriend. Eric, meanwhile, was frowning at the computer. Benji was doing the same, his brow creased in concentration. “I didn’t think Mr. Hawthorne would do something like this,” said Benji. “He seemed like such a nice guy.”
“We don’t know he murdered Jerry,” Eric said quickly. “For all we know, it really could have been Julia.”
“Yes, I like that theory,” Rose said, the phone to her ear as she waited for Ben to answer. “The murderer was Julia. Case closed.” Ben must have answered, because she abruptly stood and walked from the room, talking.
“It couldn’t have been Julia,” Benji insisted, looking very much like he’d rather he hadn’t heard any of this.
“It could have been anyone,” said Rowen, trying to calm him down.
“Well, not anyone,” Eric said, ruining any effort Rowen had just made to pacify Benji. “We’ve started to narrow it down.”
Willow put an arm around her boyfriend. She rubbed the middle of his back reassuringly. She was still looking at the laptop, herself. That smile was still on her face. She was trying to hide it, but it was difficult to miss. No mistaking it, Willow was quite enjoying being at the heart of this particular mystery. “It is suspicious, isn’t it?” she asked, looking at Rowen. “Why didn’t Mr. Hawthorne go to the police. Once Jerry was murdered, he should have gone right to them with news that Jerry was trying to blackmail him. Sitting on that information just makes him look super suspicious. If he’d gone to the police right off, the worst that would have happened is maybe the wrong people find out he’s having an affair.”
“See?” Benji looked from Willow to Rowen. “Mr. Hawthorne did it. Why else would he keep all of this a secret?”
“Because he’s rich?” Eric ventured. “He’s wealthy and doesn’t think all laws apply to him quite like they apply to everyone else. He’s not going to endanger his own reputation just because some employee went and got himself killed. He’s especially not going to come forward if he didn’t have anything to do with the murder. I bet you anything, he’s already got an alibi ready in case this stuff comes out.”
Benji looked skeptical, but Rowen knew better. If Eric was an expert on anything, it was the habits of wealthy people. “So, what do we do now?” asked Benji. He was positively lost here. It was doubtful he had ever been part of a murder investigation before now.
“We wait,” said Rowen. And that was what they did.
Chapter Twelve
There wasn’t a whole lot to glean from the monitoring program they had installed on Darren’s computer, unfortunately. There was the e-mail Jerry had sent but not a whole lot else. Ben was interested in the e-mail, but there was not a lot to give Seraphina. Eric wasn’t thrilled about that. Neither was Seraphina when they met her.
“This is disappointing,” Seraphina said, seated at the table in the back of Odds & Ends. She was wearing a red dress and a large red hat with a wide brim. It was a wonder she thought she was being sneaky meeting them in secret like this dressed like that. “I had hoped you would have found something by now. I imagine any other detective would have.”
“I doubt that,” said Eric, folding his hands on the table. He was looking at Seraphina with some poorly disguised annoyance. “Your husband is a careful man.”
“Well, not that careful,” Rowen muttered, thinking back to the e-mail she had found from Jerry. That had been easy enough to find.
Eric frowned at his wife. “Well, he’s careful when it comes to having affairs then. Either that or it’s Julia Martinez. Maybe she’s just careful.”
“Julia Martinez?” Seraphina repeated, raising an eyebrow. “That correspondent woman? I was right then?
Rowen nodded. “That’s the one.” They had one thing to report back to Seraphina, at least. “I caught them having a moment together in your husband’s office. It was on the night of the gala.”
Seraphina took a deep breath. Her expression grew serious as she looked down at the table between them. “He thinks very highly of her. He’s always talking about what a hard worker she is.” Seraphina looked at Rowen. “So, you witnessed this?”
Rowen nodded again then hesitated. “I heard it.”
“You heard it?” Seraphina repeated, her expression darkening. “I take that to mean that you didn’t get any footage.” She sighed and looked away. “Of course, you didn’t get any footage. You would have mentioned that already.”
“I couldn’t,” Rowen said in her defense. “I was hiding behind the desk installing that program you tasked us with putting on his computer. “What was I supposed to do? Lean out and snap a nice little candid?”
“I don’t know what you were supposed to do. You two are the detectives here, not me. I’m sure you would know better than I.” Seraphina’s tone was a mocking, judgmental one that Rowen didn’t much appreciate.
“Right,” she said. “We’re the detectives, so just give us our space here. We’ll get you the proof you need.”
“Don’t worry, Eric said, stepping in before Rowen could offend anyone. “We have plans. These things can take time. This is a big step in your life. I trust you can hold off on making any definite plans with your divorce lawyer for another week or two. At least we know, without a doubt, we definitely have something to catch footage of. Now it’s only a waiting game. Be patient, don’t tip off your husband, and that’s it. We’ve got this.”
Seraphina watched Eric for several long moments. Her expression was difficult to read. “Fine,” she said, finally. “Not like I have much choice. I would ask for the flash drive, but I got a call from the police about that.”
“Yeah.” Somehow, it had slipped Rowen’s mind until now that Seraphina was a part of this, too. The flash drive was hers, after all. Of course Ben would have contacted her by now. “This whole thing has sort of overlapped into a very different case.”
“I see that.” Seraphina gave a sigh. It was hard to gauge her feelings about this. She was a difficult woman to read in general, it seemed. She fixed Rowen and Eric with a very serious expression. “I know what I said before, when I said you were welcome to pin this on Darren, but whate
ver my personal feelings may be… My husband is many things, but a murderer is not one of them.”
“That’s not really our jurisdiction,” said Eric. “Our area is more… cheating spouses and such.”
“Well, he wouldn’t murder anyone over this. I can assure you of that.” Seraphina stood. “I’ll be in touch.” She picked up her purse and headed for the door without any more goodbyes than that.
Rowen watched her go. “Well, that went well,” she said when Seraphina was out of earshot. “I don’t like that woman.”
Eric shrugged. “She’s just used to getting her way.”
“Right. And I don’t like her. She’s a… well, I’m not going to say what she is, but--” Rowen was cut off as her mother used the exact word she would have used to describe Seraphina from the front of the shop. Rowen gave a low whistle. “It’s fine,” she assured Eric. “Seraphina has to be gone. My mother wouldn’t say anything like that to her face… She’s just not a fan of her. I think she’s been trying to convince them to sell her this place or something. She thinks it’s… What were the words she used? Oh, right. Cute and kitchy.”
“She reminds me of my late grandmother,” Eric said, almost fondly. “Besides, this is an interesting case, right? It’s what you wanted.”
Rowen couldn’t argue with him there. She tried to hide a smile and failed. “It is keeping me occupied,” she admitted. “But at what cost?”
“Just a little of your sanity.” Eric raised a hand like that was no big deal. “You were going to lose that gradually anyway.”
“No curses!” Aunt Lydia yelled from the sales floor. No doubt Tiffany was trying to put a hex on Seraphina as they spoke.
“That’s the truth.” Rowen rolled her eyes. Her family had been slowly driving her insane for ages now. “So, what’s the plan?” she asked Eric.
Eric considered the question for a moment. “Well, you have that dinner with Darren tonight.”
“Yep. Not sure how long that’s gonna last.” Rowen had invited Rose along. She had promised her as much. Who knew how well that was going to go?
“Have you talked to Rose lately?” Eric seemed to realize that was a stupid question before it had even left his mouth. Of course she’d talked to Rose. “How’s Ben doing?” he asked instead.
Rowen shrugged. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “Rose hasn’t talked about him much, which is probably a bad sign. Ben hasn’t really called me back since the whole flash drive thing. I guess that’s not a good sign either. I imagine Rose is going to get a lot of this out of her system tonight.
“It probably won’t be that bad,” Eric offered. “Rose has always been pretty level headed.”
“You can’t know that, but I guess. What’s your next move?”
“Me?” Eric asked like he hadn’t considered that question yet. “I guess we’re back to square one. Not technically square one. We know Darren is having an affair. Back to square one as in it looks like it’s time for a good old fashioned stakeout.”
“Tonight?” Rowen hadn’t planned on a stakeout. It sounded horribly unpleasant.
The disappointment in Rowen’s voice was not lost on Eric. “You don’t have to come.” He stood and moved past Rowen, heading into the store proper. “It sounds like you have your hands full tonight anyway. You see Darren at dinner, and I’ll follow him for the rest of the night. Sound good?”
“I still can’t see why you chose to do this over whatever it was you were doing before now,” said Tiffany, frowning at Eric as he and Rowen came from the back. “This can’t make better money.”
“It doesn’t,” said Eric. “It doesn’t make nearly as much. It’s a labor of love.”
“It seems thankless.” Tiffany shook her head in disbelief.
“Must be nice.” Aunt Lydia was leaning against the back counter, looking drowsy. “To have the time and money to do whatever it is you want.”
“It can’t be what he wants.” Tiffany cut in before Eric could respond. “No one would want to deal with that horrible woman all the time.”
“Is she trying to buy the store again?” asked Rowen, smiling knowingly. For whatever reason, Tiffany was taking that very personally.
“She’s not getting it,” said Tiffany. “She would ruin this place.”
Aunt Lydia shrugged. “It’s a nice store. Can you blame her?” she seemed fairly unconcerned with all of this Seraphina business. She motioned around the store. “The woman has good taste… Both in shops and in men.”
“Not such good taste in men,” Eric corrected. “As it turns out, Darren really is cheating on his wife.”
“I stand by what I said,” said Aunt Lydia, not looking to be particularly bothered by Darren’s infidelity either.
“Well, hopefully you won’t have to put up with her much longer,” Rowen told her mother. At least she hoped that was the case.
Rowen put on a smart business suit for her dinner with Darren. With her black jacket and knee length skirt, it looked a bit like she was dressed for a funeral… Wait. Had she worn this to a funeral? Rowen shook her head. It was too late for second thoughts now. It’s not like Darren was going to say anything even if she looked a little frumpy. He might be a terrible husband, but he was polite. Rowen put on some bright red lipstick to spice the outfit up a bit and headed out.
Eric was asleep. He probably would be until she was mostly finished with their dinner. She didn’t dare wake him. He had a long night ahead of him, and she didn’t envy him that. Not that she was really looking forward to her own evening. Who knew how this was going to go?
Rose was at the Lainswich Inquirer office. She was spending more and more time there. Whenever anything was rocky in her life, she seemed to throw herself into her work more.
Rowen knocked on the door to Rose’s office before letting herself in. “You ready to go?”
Rose jumped as if she had been startled. She looked up from her desk. “You scared me,” she said with a sigh, pressing a hand over her heart.
“Is that what you’re wearing?” Rowen asked, giving her cousin a once over. She couldn’t tell for sure with her sitting behind a desk like she was, but it looked an awful lot like she was wearing a casual gray blouse and blue jeans.
“Yeah. Why?” Rose looked at Rowen with a bit more scrutiny, taking in what she was wearing. “Oh,” she said, flatly. “I didn’t realize this was a… fancy thing.”
“It’s a dinner with Darren Hawthorne. I’d hoped you would infer.” Rowen checked the time on her phone. “Well, it’s too late to go back home and let you change now. Come on.”
Rose sighed and stood. She seemed lethargic as she did so, like it was a chore to move at all. “All right. Let’s get going, I guess.”
“Is everything all right?” They needed to go, but Rowen was willing to put all of that on hold if something was wrong.
“I’m fine.”
Rowen didn’t believe that for a moment. “You don’t look all right. Is everything okay with Ben?”
Rose hesitated. She chewed on her bottom lip, looking torn. Rowen knew that feeling. If she started talking now, she might have a hard time keeping it together at dinner. “Things aren’t going so well for him,” Rose admitted. “Public opinion of him is so low, they’re taking whether he keeps his job or not to a public forum.”
“What?” Rowen winced. “Well, that doesn’t sound good.”
“Yeah, that’s putting it lightly.” Rose headed for the door. “Come on. I’m already dressed like a hobo. Let’s not be late, too.”
Rowen wasn’t quite done with her line of questioning. She waited until they were both in the car and they were pulling out before she brought it back up. “That could work out. I mean, what are they going to do? Poll people and make their decision on that?”
Rose nodded. She was looking out the window, her expression a resigned one. “That’s what they’re doing. And I don’t see how it could be much worse.”
“Why?” asked Rowen, even though she had a pretty
good idea.
Rose gave her a look that said she knew Rowen was just playing dumb. “This town is populated by idiots.”
“That’s harsh.” Rowen wasn’t a fan of everyone in Lainswich, but her opinion of them wasn’t quite that low. “They’re… They’re not all idiots.”
“Enough of them are that it probably won’t reflect well on him.” Rose knew Rowen couldn’t argue with her there. “Especially since he’s dating me.”
“It’s not your fault.” Rowen knew that probably wasn’t very comforting to hear. Rose probably already knew as much. “Look, I’m working on figuring out who murdered Jerry. If I find anything, I’m passing that information on to Ben. If he can put this murder to rest before the forum, that would definitely raise public opinion.”
“He’s solved plenty of crimes in the past,” Rose pointed out. “He’s been great at his job, and this whole thing could still go either way.”
“This town has a short memory. You know that. I can’t guarantee they’ll remember this the next time his job is called into question, but it’ll definitely help this time.”
Rose gazed out the window a few moments longer. Finally, she looked up. “Yeah,” she said, coming around. “Yeah, I guess that could work actually.” She sounded a little excited by the idea, like she hadn’t considered it before now. “Are you close to cracking this thing, do you think? I know Ben is doing everything he can on his end. That e-mail was a good lead, but he hasn’t been able to do much with it. Looks like the account he made to send it was just a throwaway one.”
“Has he questioned Darren yet?”
Rose nodded. “Yeah. He said they found a secondary e-mail account on Jerry’s computer. So, he doesn’t know about what you did or anything.”
“That’s not going to get him into trouble, is it?”
“No,” Rose said quickly. “It’s all above board. They talked to Seraphina already… Seraphina. Is that really her name?”
Rowen laughed and was relieved to see Rose smile back at her. She was glad their conversation had lightened things up for her just a little. “That’s really her name.”
